Yeah, I heard about the show switched animation studios, though honestly I never noticed it the first time around. It's apparent that the show's original animation producer Mercury Filmworks has too many projects to work on for a studio its size. These days, Disney uses them a lot for many of its cartoons over the last five-six years; Mercury is still being used for the Mickey Mouse shorts as well as the upcoming series The Lion Guard. And Wander Over Yonder is no longer working with Mercury because of the capacity and now contracts with the Irish studio Boulder Media (they also produced the animation for Craig McCracken's Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends) for Season 2, contributing to the long delay in production. (The Wander crew recently finished production on the first second season episode.)
There's still a possibility Mercury had animated some future SvtFOE episodes alongside Toon City; we'll find out soon! 😃
Are you sick of piles of owls constantly blocking your driveway? Well, then you need Owl Trowel!
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dahaka-535-16877
9 years ago
I also didn't notice until the latest episode. The shading on characters is less apparent, and the characters look more flat and less detailed, because of thinner outlines. I can't explain it but it just looks cheaper to me. Or maybe I'm too harsh.
I don't even know who's working on it now, some say it's outsourced to Philippines (Toon Boom you say?) and others say it's being done by another Canadian studio. What I know for certain is previous Mercury-made episodes have looked freaking amazing so the slight dip in quality is noticeable to me, but not enough for me to quit the show. It's just too much fun!
But I still hate it when Disney mess around with their shows, especially a show that is still up and coming like Star! And they really shouldn't keep switching out animation studios... Just get someone else to work on that Lion King show! Star (and Gravity Falls) takes priority!
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Candy_Randy
9 years ago
Toon City is the name of the studio, Toon Boom is the animation software (which the show is animated on). And speaking of animation, here's two Comic-Con previews for "Blood Moon Ball/Freeze Day":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hGXspWJdO8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57sM7xKoUcM
After watching the clips, I think that Mercury will stick around; they probably would share production duties with Toon City for the remainder of the season. Shows that use two (or even more) animation houses to handle the workload isn't anything new since outsourcing began. 
I also forgot to mention that Penn Zero: Part Time Hero is another Disney series currently animated by Mercury.
Are you sick of piles of owls constantly blocking your driveway? Well, then you need Owl Trowel!
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dahaka-535-16877
9 years ago
The animation in those previews look beautiful. That's the style I wish they stick with!
It starts to remind me of Batman TAS, when different studios animated different episodes, and you could tell which studio based on the quality of animation :P
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